Wednesday, October 17, 2012

Finally, in Texas, the temperatures have dipped a bit and we are enjoying beautiful weather, warm days and cool nights. I love it!

And, since we are finally home for a weekend or two, we worked outside this past weekend and knocked off a few of the "to dos".

Now, first up is our front door. You would think this project would take ~ oh about 10 minutes ~ but I tried so many different plants and pumpkins and arrangements before I decided to leave it just simple this year.

So the front door got scrubbed and the whole area got hosed down and the fall arrangement went on the door and I bought and planted rosemary trees in my urns. {if I don't kill them they will be perfect for Christmas}

So simple.

But as I took this picture I noticed that hole above the front door and thought a row of little pumpkins would be pretty cute up there.

Maybe next year.

I have had this arrangement for years! Just freshen up the flowers every now and then.

This is our back door area and the door almost everyone uses.

Again, after much addition and subtraction I kept it very simple.

My last job of the weekend was cleaning our outdoor kitchen. In the fall we remove the dining table that lives there all summer and move the living room furniture back to enjoy the fireplace.

I wish I could clean my indoor kitchen in the same manner ~ I just take a hose to these counters:-)

We have a large area for cooking.

I leave a little table for dining in here year round. The kids can have lunch here, or whatever.

This is our living area, and I love to sit out here on cool evenings ~ nothing has really changed from last year.

As you can see I was relaxing after all of my hard work!

And I had to add these two photos taken on my phone. I thought it was totally dark, but you can see I captured the "blue hour". It was a lovely evening.

Monday, October 15, 2012

Our niece, Lisa, is having a baby boy named Jack any day now. She lives far away in Minnesota, but Bob's sister and I wanted to have a shower for her for our side of the family.

Bob's sister, also Sue, lives in Minnesota in the same general area as Lisa, so, we had the shower at Sue's.

My daughter, Laura, made the banner below.

She also did the initials below which are decoupaged with pages from Golden Books. The theme of our shower was Golden Books and I had fun scouring junk stores for old books.

My daughter, Jessica, painted the sign for Jack's nursery. I don't have a picture of her bedding, but if you go to The Land of Nod's website, you will see his bedding and this is an exact copy of the pillow for his bed.

The table held a book for signing and a copy of the invitation and book plates for each guest to place in their book.

The cute mantel area.

The table before the food. I forgot to take any after we put the food out.

Of course there was lemonade in the carafe and mini desserts and apple dip and a few other goodies in the bowls.

I tried to have books and toys scattered here and there and they were part of Lisa's gift.

We used the vintage golden books as lap desks to play our one and only game. Laura made up some questions about children's books.

The front porch was cute too, with lots of yellow mums and a wreath made of yellow yarn for the door. I wish I had a picture of that because I made it. And I don't do crafts!

Here are my 2 girls and their cousin Lisa.

This shower was part of our 4000 mile journey this fall. You should have seen our car with all of the shower "stuff" we hauled to Minnesota! We also made a trip to see Bob's folks and bring back his mother to be at the shower.

A blurry shot of the dining room. The compote in the middle is carnival glass I think. I inherited it from my aunt and I guess it was something she treasured very much. I'm not so crazy about it and keep it stored away, but thought I could use it in the fall with a few pumpkins in it.

I'm not loving it though, so maybe it will just grace the table on Thanksgiving instead.

A fall candle burns on the entry table along with a favorite picture of my girls in the leaves in the leaf frame. It's not so washed out, that's my photography skills.

This was my fall reading to get me in the nesting mode. Almost worked.

A gift from a friend.

My kitchen table centerpiece. There is a little strand of pumpkin lights that looks great at night.

We did take a driving trip ~ 4000 miles to be exact, and have returned home to find the month of September GONE, and it's practically the middle of October.

I am throwing up a few fall decor items, although I should probably just go right to Christmas at the rate the time is passing.

I do want to post on my cruise still, strictly for my own benefit so I can document a few of the wonderful memories.

We were fortunate on our cruise to spend the night in St. Petersburg. That meant 2 full days to see the sights.

These first few pictures are still from our first day. The afternoon was very dreary and rainy.

We stopped near this building to pay for our tour and snapped a picture of something ~ have no idea what it is. I will have to spend some time searching the web to put a name to this building.

Must be important because it is so BIG!

The Winter Palace, now one of the buildings of the Hermitage Museum.

St. Isaac's Cathedral

We took a river cruise ~ I had no idea that St. Petersburg was filled with canals. In that way it is much like Venice. It was raining for this mini cruise so my pictures are taken from inside the boat.

We came out the door in the middle and came down all of those steps to look at this fountain which is off.

{I kept thinking, surely we won't have to go back up these stairs ~ ha, yes we did, after walking through a lot of gardens.}

When we came back the fountains were on.

Here they are on ~ wow.

They are incredible.

Peter the Great wanted his guests to come by boat on the Gulf of Finland and come down this long canal to the palace. {that is the Gulf beyond the trees} They would go around the fountain and get out of their boat behind it. Can you imagine the impression he gave his visitors? That's exactly as he wished, as he was the one who wanted to make Russia a European country and he wanted his city to rival the best in Europe.

After lunch we drove back to town to visit the Hermitage Museum.

2 paintings by Leonardo Da Vinci

Madonna and Child

Michaelangelo

Rembrandt

One of my favorites by Rembrandt, The Return of the Prodigal

And of course a favorite ~ Monet.

It was so hot on the 3rd floor, no AC or elevators, so we were tired and hot by the time we got here. I am afraid our guide probably thought we were nuts, as we glanced rather quickly at all of these masterpieces, any one of which we could look at for hours.

But we were so tired and hot.

Van Gogh

On the way back to the boat we stopped to see the inside of St. Isaac's Cathedral. This church too has many mosaics and was just breathtaking.